Sunday, December 28, 2008

This post is a continuation of my previous post on extending the chi-square test to more than two dimensions. The standard, two-dimensional chi-square test is explained in Chapter 3 of my book Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel.

This post explains what it means to extend chi-square to three dimensions and then to additional dimensions. The key idea in extending the chi-square test is calculating the expected values. The next post discusses how to do the calculations using SQL.

Expected ValuesAssume that we have data that takes on a numeric value (typically a count) and has various dimensions, such as the following with dimensions A, B, and C:

A=0

B=0

C=0

1

A=0

B=0

C=1

2

A=0

B=1

C=0

3

A=0

B=1

C=1

4

A=1

B=0

C=0

5

A=1

B=0

C=1

6

A=1

B=1

C=0

7

A=1

B=1

C=1

8

The question that the chi-square test answers is: how expected or unexpected is this data?

What does this question even mean? Well, it means that we have to make some assumptions about the process generating the data -- some reasonable but simple assumptions -- and then measure how well this data matches those expected values.

One possible process is that each cell is independent of all the others. In this case, each cell would, on average, get the same count. To get a total count of 36, each cell would have, on average, a count of 4.5=36/8. Such a uniform distribution does not seem useful, because it does not take into account the structure of the data. "Structure" here means that the data has three dimensions.

The assumption used for chi-square takes this structure into account. It assumes that the process generates values independently along each dimension independently (rather than for each cell or for some arbitrary combination of dimension values). This assumption has some implications.

In the original data, there were ten things in the cells where A=0 (10 =1+2+3+4). The expected values have the same relationship -- the sum of the expected values where A=0 should also be 10. This is true for each of the values along each of the dimensions. Note, though, that it is not true for combinations of dimensions. So, the sum of the expected values where A=0 and B=0 is different (in general) for the expected values and the observed values.

There is a second implication. The distribution of values within each layer (or subcube) is the same, for all layers along the dimension. The following picture illustrates this in three dimensions:The three shaded layers each have the property that the sums of the expected values are the same as the sums of the original data. In addition, the distributions are the same. This means that the highlighted cell in each layer has the same proportion for all the layers.

This latter condition is actually quite a strong condition, because it imposes structure between all the cells in different layers.

Calculating Expected ValuesThere is actually a simple formula for calulating the expected values. The calculation starts with the sums of the values of the cells in each possible layer. The above diagram shows three layers, but this is only along one dimension. There are an additional three layers (or subcubes) along each of the other two dimensions. (The choice of 3 here is totally arbitrary; there could be any number along each dimension.)

The expected value for a cell is the ratio of two numbers:

The product of the sum of the values along each dimension, divided by

The sum in the entire table raised to the power of the number of dimensions minus one.

Let us return to the initial data in a table, with three dimensions, A, B, and C and the counts 1 through 8. What is the expected value for cell A=0, B=0, C=0?

First, we need to calculate the sums for the three layers:

Asum is the cells where A=0: 10=1+2+3+4

Bsum is the cells where B=0: 14=1+2+5+6

Csum is the cells where C=0: 16=1+3+5+7

The product is 2,240.

Second, we need the sum for the whole table, which is 36. The number of dimensions is 3, so the expected value for the cell is 2,240/36^2 = 1.73.

The other cells have similar calculations. The following shows the table with the expected values:

A

B

C

Value

Expected

0

0

0

1

1.73

0

0

1

2

2.16

0

1

0

3

2.72

0

1

1

4

3.40

1

0

0

5

4.49

1

0

1

6

5.62

1

1

0

7

7.06

1

1

1

8

8.83

Here the expected values are pretty close to the original values. This calculation is available in the accompanying spreadsheet (chi-square-blog.xls).

The calculation also readily extends to more than two dimensions. However, the condition that the distrubutions are the same along parallel subcubes becomes more and more restrictive. In two dimensions, the expected values make intuitive sense. However, as the number of dimensions grows. they may not be as intuitive. Also, by combining values along dimensions, it is possible to reduce a multidimensional case to a two-dimensional case (although some information is lost in the process).

From Expected Values to Chi-SquareThe chi-square calculation itself follows the same procedure as in the two dimensional case. The chi-square for each cell is the difference between the observed and expected value squared, divided by the expected value. The chi-square for the whole table is the sum of all the chi-square values.

The degrees of freedom is calculated in a way similar to the two-dimensional case. It is the product of the size of each dimension minus 1. So, in the 2X2X2 case, the degrees of freedom is 1. In the 3X3X3X3 case, it is 16 (2*2*2*2).

The next posting will explain how to calculate the expected value using SQL.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

When I speak about data mining, I often refer to the chi-square test as my favorite statistical test. I should be more specific, though, because I am really refering to the two-dimensional chi-square test. This is described in detail in Chapter 3 of Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel, a book that I do heartily recommend and is the starting point for many ideas that I write about here.

The chi-square test can be applied to more than two dimensions. However, the multi-dimensional chi-square behaves a bit differently from the two-dimensional case. This posting describes why. The next posting describes the calculation for the multi-dimensional chi-square. And the third posting in this series will describe how to do the calculations using SQL.

Fast Overview of Chi-Square

The Chi-Square test is used when we have two or more categorical variables and counts of how often each combination appears. For instance, the following is a simple set of data in two dimensions:

A=0

B=0

1

A=0

B=1

2

A=1

B=0

3

A=1

B=1

4

This data is summarized from ten observations. The first row says that in one data record, both A and B are zero. The last row says that in four of them, both A and B are 1. In practice, when using the chi-square test, we would want higher counts -- and we would get them, because these are counts of customers (say, responders and non-responders by gender).

In two dimensions, a contingency table is perhaps a better way of looking at the counts:

B=0

B=1

A=0

1

2

A=1

3

4

The chi-square test then asks the question . . . What is the probability that the counts are produced randomly, assuming that both the A and B are independent? To answer this question, we need the expected values assuming independence between A and B. The following table shows the expected values:

B=0

B=1

A=0

1.2

1.8

A=1

2.8

4.2

The expected values have two important properties. First, the row sums and column sums are the same as the original data. So, 1+2 = 1.2+1.8 = 3, and so on for both rows and both columns.

The second property is a little more subtle, but it says that the ratios of values in any column or any row are the same. So, 1.2/1.8 = 2.8/4.2 = 2/3, and so on. Of all possible 2X2 matrices, there is only one that has both these properties.

Now, the chi-square value for any cell is the square of the difference between the actual value and the expected value divided by the expected value. The chi-square for the matrix is the sum of the chi-square values for all the cells. These follow a chi-square distribution with one degree of freedom, and this gives us a enough information to determine whether the original counts are likely due to chance.

Calculating expected values is easy. The expected value for any cell is the product of the row sum times the column sum divided by the total in the table. For example, for A=0, B=0, the row sum is 3 and the column sum is 4. The product is 12, so the expected value is 1.2 = 12/10.

Treating Three Dimensions As Two DimensionsNow, let's assume that the data has three dimensions rather than two. For example:

A=0

B=0

C=0

1

A=0

B=0

C=1

2

A=0

B=1

C=0

3

A=0

B=1

C=1

4

A=1

B=0

C=0

5

A=1

B=0

C=1

6

A=1

B=1

C=0

7

A=1

B=1

C=1

8

We can treat this as a contingency table in two dimensions:

C=0

C=1

A=0,B=0

1

5

A=0,B=1

2

6

A=1,B=0

3

7

A=1,B=1

4

8

And from this we can readily calculate the expected values:

C=0

C=1

A=0,B=0

1.67

4.33

A=0,B=1

2.22

5.78

A=1,B=0

2.78

7.22

A=1,B=1

3.33

8.67

The chi-square calculation follows as in the earlier case. The chi-square value for each cell is the actual count minus the expected value squared divided by the expected value. The chi-square value for the entire table is the sum of all the chi-square values for each cell.

The only difference here is that there are three degrees of freedom. This affects how to transform the chi-square value into a probability, but it does not affect the computation.

Which Are the Right Expected Values?There are actually two other continency tables that we might produce from the original 2X2X2 data, depending on which dimension we use for the columns:

B=0

B=1

A=0,C=0

1

2

A=0,C=1

5

6

A=1,C=0

3

4

A=1,C=1

7

8

and

A=0

A=1

B=0,C=0

1

3

B=0,C=1

5

7

B=1,C=0

2

4

B=1,C=1

6

8

Following the same procedure, we can calcualte the expected values for each of these.

B=0

B=1

A=0,C=0

1.33

1.67

A=0,C=1

4.89

6.11

A=1,C=0

3.11

3.89

A=1,C=1

6.67

8.33

and

B=0

B=1

A=0,C=0

1.78

2.22

A=0,C=1

5.33

6.67

A=1,C=0

2.67

3.33

A=1,C=1

6.22

7.78

Oops!. The three sets of expected values are different from each other. Which do we use for the 2X2X2 chi-square calculation?

Why Independence is a Strong ConditionThe answer is none of these. For the three dimensional data (and higher dimensional as well), the three contingency tables are almost always going to be different, because they mean different things. This is perhaps best viewed geometrically:

In this cube, the front face corresponds to C=0 and the hidden face to C=1. The A values go horizontally and the B's vertically. The three different contingency tables are formed by cutting the cube in half and then pasting the halves together. These tables are different.

For instance, the front face and the back facee are each 2X2 contingency tables. The expected values for these can be determined just from the information on each face. We do not need the information along the C dimension for this calculation. Worse, we cannot even use this information -- so there is no way to ensure that the sums along the "C" dimension add up to the same values in the original data and for the expected values.

The problem is that the sums along each dimension overspecify the problem. A given value has three adjacent values along three dimensions. However, only two of the dimensions are needed to calcualte an expected value, assuming independence along those two dimensions. The information along the third dimension cannot be incorporated into the calculation.

The reason? Independence is a very strong condition. Remember, it says not only that the sums are the same but also that the ratios within each row (or column or layer) are the same. Normally, we might think "independent" variables are providing as much flexibility as possible. However, that is not the case. In fact, the original counts are the only ones that meet the all the conditions of independence at the level of every row, colum, and level.

When I think of this situation, I think of a paradox related to the random distribution of stars. We actually perceive a random distribution as more ordered. Check out this site for an example. Similarly, our intuition is that independence among variables is a weak condition. In fact, it can be quite a strong condition.

The next posting will explain how expected values work in three and more dimensions. For now, it is worth explaining that converting a three-dimensional problem into two dimensions is often feasible and reasonable. This is particularly true when one of the dimensions is a "response" characteristic and the rest are input dimensions. However, such a 2X2 table is really an approximation.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

In an earlier post, I compared MapReduce functionality and and SQL functionality and made the claim that SQL required two passes through the data to calculate the number of customer starts and stops per month. (The data used for this is on the companion web site for my book Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel.)

Two of the comments on this post explained SQL syntax that achieves the goal more efficiently. In particular, the GROUPING SETS keyword, which is part of more recent SQL standards, is an efficient solution that allows SQL to do more of the types of processing made possibly by MapReduce. This functionality is available in SQL Server and Oracle. However, it is not yet available in MySQL.

The following SQL query answers the question at the top of this post using FULL OUTER JOIN (an alternative approach is to use UNION ALL):

Although this query is effective, in most databases, it would require two passes through the data.

An alternative approach is to use GROUPING SETS. This keyword is a generalization and imporvement on CUBE functionality. The generalization is more powerful, because it gives more options for the query optimizaer.

GROUPING SET allows a query to return summaries along each grouping dimension, with or without generating the full set of rows that GROUP BY would create. The following query returns a separate row for each combination of start month and stop month:

SELECT MONTH(start_date) as start_month, MONTH(stop_date) as stop_month,.......COUNT(*) as cntFROM customerGROUP BY MONTH(start_date), MONTH(stop_date)

We could imagine row in the result set as being a cell in a big cross tabulation table, with the start months on the rows and the stop months on the columns. What we really want are the subtotals along the rows and the columns, not the full table. The following query accomplishes this:

SELECT COALESCE(start_month, stop_month) as month,.......SUM(CASE WHEN stop_month IS NULL THEN cnt ELSE 0 END) as starts,.......SUM(CASE WHEN start_month IS NULL THEN cnt ELSE 0 END) as stopsFROM (SELECT MONTH(start_date) as start_month, MONTH(stop_date) as stop_month, .............COUNT(*) as cnt......FROM customer......GROUP BY GROUPING SETS (MONTH(start_date), MONTH(stop_date)) .....) aWHERE start_month IS NOT NULL and stop_month IS NOT NULL

The subquery in this query aggregates the data in a special way. The outer query simply reformats the results to be similar to the earlier query.

The GROUPING SETS keyword specifies that summaries of the data should be returned, rather than the individual aggregated rows. This syntax specifies that groups are created for the start month and stop month. So, the inner query returns rows such as the following:

Start Month

Stop Month

Count

Jan

NULL

Feb

NULL

. . .

NULL

Jan

NULL

Feb

. . .

However, the cross-rows generated by the regular group by are not there. Half the rows have the subtotals for start months; for these the stop month column is NULL. Half have subtotals for the start month, where the stop month is NULL. This syntax does not generate the cross-tabulation data, but it does keep the row and column subtotals.

The GROUPING SETS keyword generates the subtotals for the start months and stop months. In general, the query optimizer will generate the various grouping aggregations in one pass over the data. This makes the syntax and performance much more similar to the MapReduce approach.

However, Map Reduce still has two practical advantages. The first are the limits on the number of groups in the grouping sets. In SQL Server, only 32 groups are allowed. This example only used two. But more complex examples might breach this limit.

The other issue is the flexibility of the SQL language. One of the major uses of MapReduce is to process text. In this case, we would be extracting many potential features from the text, and then doing subsequent aggregations. SQL extensions can be used to create the features. However, such features quickly exceed the limits on the number of groups, limiting the feasbility of this approach.

One warning about the syntax. The parentheses in the GROUPING SETS statement are important. The following version would actually be the equivalant of the regular GROUP BY:

GROUP BY GROUPING SETS ((MONTH(start_date), MONTH(stop_date))

This is because the keyword takes a list of things being grouped. So, in the original version (one set of parentheses), there are two elements in the list -- the totals for start month and stop month. In the second version, there is one element in the list, so the cross-tabulation between start month and stop month are generated instead. This cross-product is the equivalent of the regular group by.

And my final comment is about the CUBE keyword which seems to provide the same functionality. This keyword generates all the regular aggregation rows in the table, along with additional subtotals for all combinations of dimensions. In the above example, it would generate the cross-tab table of start month and end month, as well as the summary rows.

The problem with the CUBE keyword is that the original query does not need all the aggregation rows, so generating them is a waste of time. Whether this is faster or slower than the original version of the query with the FULL OUTER JOIN depends on the environment. However, it could be quite inefficient. In addition, the query optimizer would have a very difficult time determining that these rows are not needed.

I do not feel that the CUBE keyword provides functionality similar to MapReduce. However, the GROUPING SETS keyword does provide functionality similar to MapReduce, because it produces summaries along dimensions without requiring multiple passes through the data and without generates large cross-tabulations. In addition, the GROUPING SETS keyword allows the query optimizer to choose from a variety of algorithms for executing the query, taking advantage of large computer systems using SQL syntax instead of programming.